MRK vs. ABBV, PFE, JNJ, LLY, BMY, ZTS, AZN, NVS, NVO, and ABT
Should you be buying Merck & Co., Inc. stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Merck & Co., Inc. include AbbVie (ABBV), Pfizer (PFE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Eli Lilly and (LLY), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Zoetis (ZTS), AstraZeneca (AZN), Novartis (NVS), Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), and Abbott Laboratories (ABT). These companies are all part of the "pharmaceutical preparations" industry.
Merck & Co., Inc. vs.
AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, earnings, community ranking, media sentiment, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.
Merck & Co., Inc. has a net margin of 22.52% compared to AbbVie's net margin of 13.37%. AbbVie's return on equity of 153.92% beat Merck & Co., Inc.'s return on equity.
AbbVie received 349 more outperform votes than Merck & Co., Inc. when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.22% of users gave AbbVie an outperform vote while only 66.79% of users gave Merck & Co., Inc. an outperform vote.
67.7% of AbbVie shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 72.9% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of AbbVie shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
AbbVie currently has a consensus price target of $163.40, indicating a potential upside of 19.41%. Merck & Co., Inc. has a consensus price target of $120.75, indicating a potential upside of 7.31%. Given AbbVie's higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe AbbVie is more favorable than Merck & Co., Inc..
In the previous week, AbbVie had 2 more articles in the media than Merck & Co., Inc.. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for AbbVie and 13 mentions for Merck & Co., Inc.. Merck & Co., Inc.'s average media sentiment score of 0.67 beat AbbVie's score of 0.27 indicating that Merck & Co., Inc. is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
AbbVie has a beta of 0.58, indicating that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Merck & Co., Inc. has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its stock price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Merck & Co., Inc. has higher revenue and earnings than AbbVie. Merck & Co., Inc. is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AbbVie, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
AbbVie pays an annual dividend of $5.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Merck & Co., Inc. pays an annual dividend of $2.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. AbbVie pays out 140.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Merck & Co., Inc. pays out 57.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AbbVie has increased its dividend for 51 consecutive years and Merck & Co., Inc. has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years. AbbVie is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Summary
AbbVie beats Merck & Co., Inc. on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MRK and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
Merck & Co., Inc. Competitors List
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